Content Warning: This show contains explicit descriptions of war. It mentions suicide and there is profanity.

I'm running An American Life in honor of Veteran's Day. The radio broadcast will be split into two episodes, which will run on consecutive Sundays starting November 9. This web version which you see here is the full show.

A number of years ago, my sister told me she had a feeling that I should talk with her hairdresser, Vaughn Hood. Vaughn ran a hair salon with his wife, Bev, in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, and my sister said that he'd mentioned his time in Vietnam to her while he was cutting her hair. They didn't talk much about it, but she thought maybe somebody should.

It turned out that Vaughn hadn’t really talked with anyone about his time in Vietnam. So we sat down in the back

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